With the growing population of senior citizens, one of the major health and social problems of modern times is the decline in cognitive function in ageing and neurodegenerative disease. Currently, the approach for improving cognitive function involves pharmacological intervention targeting neurotransmitter pathways believed to be involved in the process of memory formation with the aim of increasing neurotransmitter level and thus improve signal transmission. However, these therapies are at best symptomatic or supportive. A different and promising approach is described in US 2011/0052566, teaching methods for improving cognitive function by inhibition of the kinase activity of protein kinase R (PKR).
However, there still remains an unmet need for therapies and methods for treating cognitive impairment. The need for improving cognition is not a prerogative only of cognitively impaired patients but may also be desired by normally functioning individuals desiring to improve learning and memory.